Charlotte Yonge is one of the most influential and important of Victorian women writers; but study of her work has been handicapped by a tendency to patronise both her and her writing, by the vast number of her publications and by a shortage of information about her professional career. Scholars have had to depend mainly on the work of her first biographer, a loyal disciple, a situation which has long been felt to be unsatisfactory. We hope that this edition of her correspondence will provide for the first time a substantial foundation of facts for the study of her fiction, her historical and educational writing and her journalism, and help to illuminate her biography and also her significance in the cultural and religious history of the Victorian age.


Featured Letters...

Elderfield
Oct 2d [1900]

My dear C C I hope the change will be a success. I did not know there had to be so long an interval, I do not remember it here, but as it was between old friends there might have been some arrangement. Wells Gardiner will not reprint ‘Forget me not’. I wonder whether I ought to try SPCK, they took Mary Bramston’s FL story last year - I don’t think Macmillan ... continue reading

Otterbourne, Winchester
Jan 22d [1862]

My dear Miss Smith,

I enclose your cheque. I am very sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but Mr Mozley has not paid me yet, and as I sent him an appeal the other day to see if I could not get our pay raised, I was waiting for his answer though even if it were to raise our terms it would hardly be for this year that is past. I feel very cross ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
March 31st 1875

My dear Mrs Harte

If you can spare the 12th chapter of Disobedient Cecil please send it direct to Messrs Mozley at Derby, as they want to set it up

yours sincerely C M Yonge

... continue reading
OUR MAGAZINES Madam,- Is not ‘Genista,’ in accordance with her signature, a little too humble in her estimation of the wants of Members? Girls of that age do not want simple ‘goody tales;’ they will find and read books that we think are quite beyond them. Most girls have passed their standards at school, and there have acquired knowledge enough to take an interest in subjects brought forward. It is much more wholesome for them ... continue reading